PJT

Well, having just looked upstairs I can confirm that neither my Hornby 61267 nor 61243 have the conduits on the smokebox either, so it seems Hornby missed the conduits (unlikely, given some of the other details they've tooled up for) or they made a conscious decision not to include them. It looks a little wierd having the apparatus without a representation of the wiring connecting it (apart from a lonely conduit run to nowhere on the boiler side), but I guess it will have kept the tooling cost for the smokebox down a bit. I agree, it's a bit odd considering they went the extra mile with conduit on the L1 models; I wonder if the miriad of alternatives Hornby allowed for on the B1 had already eaten up the budget and creating two smokebox tooling inserts was a step too far? Whichever, it gives me another satisfying little project to do, thank you! Just to add, I love your weathering and finish in the photo - it's certainly got that elusive 'paint on steel' effect on the boiler side. Pete T.

Robbie, Tony Wright has mentioned once or twice in Wright Writes that he's working on 'The Book of The B1s' for Irwell Press. I have a feeling he's not long started and since it's by all accounts a very complicated subject it may be a while before we get our hands on it. When it arrives I reckon we'll have to form an orderly queue - there's a lot of B1 fans out there who'd love to see a good publication that unravels the complications, including you and me. I don't know how many were made but you're right, they do seem to come up for sale far fewer times than most of the other Hornby B1s. Pity, because for those of us who like to mix and match the details to create particular locos 61270 and 61267 have quite a few very useful features, one of which being the electric lighting you mentioned and another being a tender with the shorter coal space. You know I'm a fan of the Hornby B1, though I'll also readily admit the Bachmann one, even though the body tooling is very old and a little on the crude side by current standards, still scrubs up well with a bit of detailing (and it has a tender variant that Hornby don't yet do). Once again Hornby has commendably created a suite of tools and tooling inserts that provide for many different B1 locos and combinations of features, though they don't actually cover anywhere near all the possibilities (which, looking at it a positive way, gives us more very satisfying little modelling projects to do). As an example, how many styles of smokebox door did the B1s have? I think I'm right in saying Hornby have tooled for a couple, but to my knowledge (and I'm no authority on B1s, just an examiner of photos of locos I want to create) there's at least three others and of course some locos had different smokebox doors at different times in their lives. Tony Wright has his work cut out! He did intimate that 'The Book of The B1s' might run to more than one volume, but I can't remember if that was just a quip or a genuine possibility. Pete T.

In Europe it's also often the case for the commissioning company to own the work done to create the tools, but for the toolmaker/factory to retain ownership of the materials the tools are made from, the obvious result of which being that one party can usually do very little without the cooperation of the other (e.g. the commissioner cannot unilaterally decide to move the tools elsewhere or to sell them on to another organisation, while the factory cannot decide on a whim to run the tools for another customer). This is particularly common with what are known as 'soft' tools for limited production or low volume presswork, where the tools are created relatively cheaply by casting them from a pattern, but the material used in the casting process (usually Kirksite) is very expensive. Admittedly that example's for presswork (i.e. panelwork and bracket pressforming), because that's where the bulk of my knowledge and experience is, but similar arrangements are pretty common in the injection moulding and blow moulding industries. Pete T.

I must admit, I look at these posts and the pdf report and it sends a shiver down my spine. I'm the sole employee of my own business; after watching this slow-motion tram smash from the sidelines I'm left thinking, 'Good God, this is awful, this is what happens if you get it all wrong.' And I'd curl up and die inside to see the contents of my washing basket being picked over by all those who, very justifiably, still feel so very aggrieved. An example for all us self employed people to remember if we're ever tempted to play fast and loose or rob Peter to pay Paul. Pete T.

Yes, but if we're playing by the Yorkshire Variation Rules, then surely you must be in Nidd at the moment. Pete T.

Excuse me? That didn't even part my hair as it went over my head! Cameras have clearly changed a bit since I last bought one. I must Google that to find out what it is. Pete T.

Most Smiths and Jaeger instruments and gauges were externally illuminated like that, prior to internal illumination taking over in the 1960s. Automotive illumination was usually unfiltered white light (on very rare occasions filtered pale green or pale orange), whereas aeronautical was usually blue filtered. Pete T.

I was just about to say that! Always worth a few minutes' browse when we visit Lincoln, much to the chagrin of Pam when she's trying to get us to the top of the hill for the farmer's market, or something (slightly) less interesting like that. Pete T.

Just in case you needed the reassurance, I think you're safe, John! Not just model railways; all my colleagues in classic car parts manufacturing and sales say they can't keep up with demand at the moment and our local needlecraft and haberdashers shops, while closed to visitors, are doing a roaring trade in home deliveries. Seems like some of that section of the public who've mocked and derided hobbies for so long have actually discovered what all of us already know: hobbies are good for the soul. Good on you - I'm delighted to hear you're so busy. Pete T.

They did and still do. Hornby very nicely gave us Coronach (what a great looking nameplate and what a great sounding name!) and I mixed and matched from a pool of A3 and A4 bits to create Bayardo, Sir Visto and Flamingo - the last, like Flying Scotsman, running in BR service with an A4 non-corridor tender. I know the Hornby A1/A3 range has its faults, like pretty well all ready to run models, and granted one or two of them are glaring. I still reckon though that it captures the feel of the class really well; it has all the dignity and imperiousness of the real thing - as perfectly shown in your image of Coronach. Pete T.

Good choice of A3, Rob. 60067 'Ladas' is a particularly useful BR livery Hornby A3 because I think I'm right in saying it's the only one the company have made so far with a Thompson boiler (round dome). I fitted a double chimney to it and swapped the tender for a GNR one and it became one of the famously hard to cop Carlisle Canal quartet of A3s, 60079 Bayardo. Actually Hornby did a pretty good job on replicating the differences on the A3 boilers - in BR livery A3s alone, Hornby have done either three or four boilers with different shaped and positioned domes, plus various other plug positions etc. - and that's aside from the more obvious single or double chimney spec. Excuse my haziness on the exact details (I've got half the story in my head and the other half is in my library!) but I've always been very impressed at the number of A3 boiler variations Hornby have wrung out of the tooling. Pete T.

What a really nicely worded answer. Pete T.

In the good old bad old days before Woodhead transfers I used to hand-letter 00 gauge wagons using a 0.1mm Rotring nib with Rotring white ink. Any other brand of ink gummed the nib up solid. Even with Rotring ink, I needed to clean it every hour or so. I admit I haven't done lining with pens for many years, but two things I remember: 1. When using anything other than 'proper' drawing pen ink, Faber Castell draughting pens were far superior to Rotring, partly because the nib dismantled more conveniently to clean the helix etc., and the metals the nibs were made from dragged less and didn't allow pigments to build up on them so much. 2. I used to use Speedry Opaque Magic Color (I've just Googled it, and it is still available in a variety of colours, appropriate for lining several liveries). It's a genuinely opaque acrylic medium that works a treat in draughting pens - or at least it used to - looking at the advert on Amazon just now it looks the same stuff, but paints and inks these days have a habit of having their formulae changed and never quite being as good as they used to be, so I can't guarantee it. The bottles come with a useful pipette in the lid and seem to average around £7 each (in my experience a bottle will last many years - I still have many of mine from 25 years ago or more and I've just checked them and the contents are fine). Worth a try? Pete T.

And I remember in the car industry a large company that should have known better that reproduced a bumper bolt by reverse engineering from a secondhand sample. The reproduction was faithful, right down to the stretched thread. Twenty five thousand were made before the error was spotted. They, as we say, all ended up as fishing weights. The original dimensioned component drawings for the bolts were all still easily obtained, had they bothered to do so. Pete T.

Quite so. Same thing happens in the automotive industry, too. There, a GA drawing is (should be!) regarded as no more than a list of all the sub-assembly and detail drawings that you'll need to search out to obtain your required information. At the top dead centre of all GA and sub assembly drawings (and almost all dimensioned component drawings too) is stated 'Do Not Scale'. Pete T.

... just trying to give the announcement that authentic RMweb feel. Good on you, chaps. I wish the project great success. A very high profile gap in the range plugged. Pete T.

May I just say, 'Nothing in it for me'... Pete T.

Thank you Andy. I'll now butt out of this. My dad was a copper; he used to say to me, if you're unwise enough to find yourself between the two parties in a domestic dispute, prepare for all the fire to be turned on you. I need to remember that a bit more sometimes (he also said, 'Never live in a corner house, they're burgled far more frequently' and we live in... a corner house). I do understand where you were coming from last night and unfortunately your reading of which direction things were going in was proved correct earlier this morning. Pete T.

Phil, I am really, genuinely very sorry you took my post to be patronising. I absolutely didn't intend it that way; I worked very hard on making it as as fair minded as I could. Nor was it intended in even in the slightest way as a criticism of you. I was just trying to suggest, in as reasonable a tone as I could, that between micklner posting his comment and you responding to it, the thing he was commenting about had been significantly changed but (because there was no 'edit' comment) that change wouldn't have been apparent to you. In other words, I was trying to help smooth over the situation, and that's absolutely all I was doing. Pete T.

Yup. All's well that ends well. Don't you get carried away with the watering, will you? Hic! Lovely little models though, as were the Kernow Beattie Well Tanks before them. Not that I'm biased or anything. Have a good one, Pete T.

I expect it did. So where's the 'Ok, I can understand that' icon when I need one? Pete T.

I really, really don't like getting involved in this sort of thing, but in the interests of fair play to micklner, Phil, may I please suggest that you might be well served to find out from Andy Y. what his post said before he edited it; I must admit I gulped a bit at its harshness, too. Pete T.

Andy, If you make it over here again and you want to go back to the island, I'd be happy for you to pick my brain about what's changed and revisiting the island's former railways. Pam and I live on the mainland, but still conveniently close enough to take our bikes over on the car ferries (expensive crossing with cars, very cheap with bikes!) for day trips, often using the former railways that are now cycle paths. We also stay over there pretty frequently too. You might know you can now cycle right the way across the island from Cowes to Sandown, exclusively using railway cycle paths except for Newport town centre (and even that bit's on traffic-free paths now). Other shorter stretches of railway cycle path have been created in different parts of the island, too. We both love the scenery and the seafood, though I'll admit I get more out of the old railway infrastructure than Pam probably does. Never explored the Callington branch, though again we do cycle large chunks of the rest of the Southern's Withered Arm, every time we holiday in Devon and Cornwall (cue wistful reminiscences, given the current epidemic restrictions here). I'll make a point of exploring what's left of the branch when we're next down there. That's what it looks like to me, too. Thanks, but don't take up your time searching out other photos of ex-pull-push O2s retaining their doors just for my benefit - the job of removing the doors from my 30225 is struck off the 'To Do' list already! Pete T.

How about the well known and rather deadly dip half way along the platform at Sturminster Newton on the Somerset & Dorset? Intended for access to the foot crossing, it was situated right outside the main station building, where you'd probably be most likely to alight from the train. Although this is an early photo (credited to Lens of Sutton, copied out of OPC's Historical Survey of the Somerset & Dorset Railway) the feature remained right up until line closure in 1966. Apologies for photo quality; I can't at the moment find a better image that more clearly illustrates the dip. Pete T.

Morning Andy, I read your post this morning with a big smile on my face; the vast knowledge available on RMweb and the ability of its members to successfully - and sometimes conclusively - debunk statements is a wonderful thing. Thank you for that. I'm sure Barry will appreciate it too. I've just flicked through the O2 chapter in Badley's book on the Adams locomotives and I can't see any mention of rules about cab door removal there; I've yet to look in several other books I have that detail the lives of the O2s. I wonder where the statement came from originally? Not that it matters too much since you've disproved it anyway, but I'd feel a bit better if I could show myself it had come from a trusted source! It's certainly something I've always understood to be true, one of the many little quirks of the class and I know I'm far from alone in believing and quoting it. My apologies to Chris at Kernow, if he reads this thread, for incorrectly saying his model was incorrect! Whatever, your photo proves yet again the necessity of having photos of the loco from the right period to hand when you're making a model, doesn't it? Do you know where your photo of 30225 was taken? It looks like it could be at Eastleigh, after she had returned from Plymouth. I think I'll go back to making sweeping statements about Island O2s - I know I'm on safer ground there! Pete T.